Posts Tagged ‘caroline wozniacki’

Strawberries-and-cream vs. upturned rose (apparently), one of these women has looked in devastatingly awesome form so far, and the other is Maria Sharapova. Admittedly Maria has won all her matches in straight sets, but the only one I’ve watched (against junior nemesis Barbora Zahlalova Strycova), she looked clumsy, sluggish and tentative. I’ve no doubt that she will get it up against Serena, but I still think this match might turn out to be a bit of a damp squib. Prediction: Serena in straights.

Winner to meet …

Na Li v Agnieszka Radwanska

H2H: 1-2

It’s been a quiet Wimbledon for both these ladies so far and I haven’t seen either of them play (although we all owe Na Li a vote of thanks for getting rid of Anastasia ‘toys so far out of the pram they have been adopted by other kind homes’ Rodionova). I’m going with Agnieszka, because her game works beautifully on grass and she’s a two-time quarterfinalist in SW19. Prediction: Radwanska in three.

Caroline Wozniacki v Petra Kvitova

H2H: 2-0

Kvitova has had one of the most eye-catching results at this tournament so far, coming back from a break down in the first to not just defeat but bagel Victoria Azarenka (oh, Vika). That will have given her a lot of confidence, but you can’t really bet against slow-and-steady Caroline, can you? Sadly. Prediction: Wozniacki in straights.

Winner to meet …

Klara Zakopalova v Kaia Kanepi

H2H: 0-1

There are some players that I just get irrationally annoyed when I see them win. These are two of them; Zakopalova because she’s got a sour expression on her face even when she’s winning, and Kanepi because you can never tell from tournament to tournament which one of her is going to turn up (and when it’s Good Kaia, she generally announces her presence by beating one or more of my favourites). However, both of them are on excellent mini-runs. Zakopalova has beaten Meusberger, Rezai and Pennetta; Kanepi, Sam Stosur, Edina Gallovits and Alexandra Dulgheru. On the basis that the former is a shade more impressive and I don’t really care, I’m going with Zakopalova. Prediction: Zakopalova in three. She won’t smile.

Kim Clijsters v Justine Henin

H2H: 12-12 (3-1 on grass)

The other match to look forward to, particularly if you’re one of those who bemoans the last few years in the WTA. Kim has cruised so far and looks in some ways ripe for an upset, while Justine has played as well as anyone in the tournament in her defeat of Nadia Petrova. Still, I think that Justine wants this too much and that, coupled with the changes she’s made to her game this year which still don’t seem to sit right, will cost her. Prediction: Kim in three.

Winner to meet …

Vera Zvonareva v Jelena Jankovic

H2H: 5-6

Vera has been quietly coming through in the bottom of the draw, largely unheeded with solid wins over unspectacular opponents until the third round when she demolished Yanina Wickmayer. The buzz is that she finally feels that she’s got her form back. JJ, meanwhile, after her win over Laura Robson, dropped a set to Aleksandra Wozniak and called the trainer after bagelling Alona Bondarenko. Not to mention that this court will be played on court 12, which JJ will need a helicopter or at least a team of Sherpas to find. Prediction: Zvonareva in two.

Tsvetana Pironkova v Marion Bartoli

H2H: 0-3

Every Slam I reckon there has to be one round-of-sixteen match-up which makes you go, “… how did this happen?”. This is mine. Er, Pironkova beat Dushevina who beat Schiavone, and Bartoli is a former finalist, so …. I don’t even know. Prediction: Bartoli in straights.

Winner to meet …

Jarmila Groth v Venus Williams

H2H: 0-0

It’s been a very nice tournament for the adorable Jarmila. Shame it’s over. Prediction: Venus in straights.

A nation quaked, but it all turned out surprisingly well; Andy Murray bowed. Quite decently. One hand on the stomach, one on the back. All very respectable and with a definite air of having been practiced in front of the mirror.

You can find the bow here for post-game analysis. If you’re British. Sorry, everyone else.

He also won the match, by the way. There’s been some excited muttering about him not having played so well since Melbourne, and that’s probably true, but let’s face it, that’s really not that difficult. Anyway, it can’t have been easy out there today, despite Mandy’s claims he felt no particular additional pressure.

Bless you, you little liar.

You have to love the way that Wimbledon, in a year when for once most people’s attention will not be on Murray’s performance, still finds a way to pile on the pressure, as Mandy was duly sent up to have a private chatette with HRM immediately after the match.

How lucky is the AELTC that Mandy was playing someone as nice and polite as Jarkko, by the way? I mean, imagine if say, Daniel Koellerer was Mandy’s second-round opponent. He probably would have nutted her one. Or propositioned her.

HRM left before watching Wozniacki, for reasons which just boggle the mind, but she did have a full tour earlier on and meet a little receiving line of players past and present.

And then she was gone, and Wimbledon metaphorically heaved a sigh of relief, got out the beers and undid the top button of its trousers. Which is not something that is often said. Anyway, it was lovely to see her there. I just hope she doesn’t leave it so long this time.

Some interesting results from a tournament so loaded it is traditionally total carnage. First up, Aravane Rezai beat Caroline Wozniacki in the Battle of the New Outfits:

Wozniacki’s loss, as defending champion, will put JJ up to no. 3 next week, I hear.

Things did not go a lot better for the almost identically-named Aleksandra Wozniak, who lost in straight sets to plucky young thing Heather Watson in the Battle of Being Nearly the Sole Hope of Your Nation:

C’mon Tim!

The Battle of the Belgians was won by Kim Clijsters in emphatic style, downing the somewhat floundering Yanina Wickmayer 61 61 after returning from her foot injury:

Francesca Schiavone followed in the footsteps of last year’s French Open champion, Svetlana Kuznetsova, in losing in the first round, bundled out by Sorana Cirstea in the Battle of Career Highs at Roland Garros:

Sveta herself, meanwhile, survived the Battle of the Russians, beating Alisa Kleybanova 46 75 62. Then she announced she was playing doubles with Rezai at Wimbledon via twitter. That whacky Sveta.

In younger generation news, Victoria Azarenka took out Agnieszka Radwanska in the Battle of Can I Get Past the Wimbledon Quarters This Year? No:

But she does have amazing hair.

And in the Battle of the Careers Plagued By Injury, Elena Baltacha was left standing for once as Li Na, probably exhausted from her efforts in Edgbaston last week, retired after winning the first set, 76(6):

And that was your WTA wackiness for the day.

Meanwhile, on the ATP side, James Ward and Feliciano Lopez duked it out fiercely to see who could confound expectations the most. Ward looked to have an unassailable lead on that front, as he stunned everyone by not only winning the first set but going up a break in the second. Not to be outdone, however, Lopez abruptly retired at 4-5 down, denying Ward the chance to explode spectactularly when serving for it. A Pyrrhic victory at best, one feels.

Eastbourne always has such a ridiculously loaded draw, like Queens, and this year is no exception. If you don’t believe me, take a look at these first-round matches: Wozniacki-Rezai, MJMS-Zvonareva, Radwanska-Azarenka, Pavlyuchenkova-Safarova, Wickmayer-Clijsters, Peer-Zheng, and Kleybanova-Kuznetsova. Amazing stuff.

Congratulations meanwhile to Heather Watson, who beat her first top-1oo opponent in Tsvetana Pironkova to make it to the final round of qualifying. Good girl.

s’Hertogenbosch (hereafter referred to as ‘den Bosch, as a bona fide Dutch person said I could call it)

Today was indeed a heartwarming day, wasn’t it? In addition to Soderling and Berdych on the men’s side, on the women’s side we had Elena Dementieva once again flying under the radar to outlast younger and more hyped players to reach her gazillionth Slam semi-final after defeating Nadia Petrova.

I have to admit that probably the worst WTA match I’ve ever watched was between these two ladies, and from the look of things, I’m not sorry I missed this one.

Commiserations to Nadia, who was obviously physically hampered (she pulled out of her doubles match last night) and pulled off two great wins in this tournament, beating Aravane Rezai and Venus Williams to make Roland Garros 2010 at least 50% more boring fashionwise. But equally huge congratulations to Elena, who didn’t come to Paris in the greatest form or physical shape and has looked to be on her way out at least once, only to regroup and find herself with an excellent chance of making the finals.

Elena will face Francesca Schiavone, who asked not what her country could do for her when she beat Caroline Wozniacki 62 63 to become the first Italian woman to make the semi-finals of a Slam. That is huge, and it was a huge performance from her; crafty, aggressive, throwing the full range of her talents at Wozniacki and making her look decidedly one-dimensional.

Q. Your moment of triumph of was so special. Your face was filled with joy. I know it’s difficult, but can you try and talk about emotion, the role of emotion and your play, your feeling at that moment?
FRANCESCA SCHIAVONE: Heart attack.

Q. Hard to put in words, is what I meant to say.
FRANCESCA SCHIAVONE: Maybe I can tell you in Italian; is more easy.

Q. In Italian is fine.
FRANCESCA SCHIAVONE: No, that’s okay.
I think in that moment you remember many things from when you are when you were young. Is special because is your space, is your time, is your opportunity.
I felt alone, but with all the love around me is bo. (I don’t know.) It’s like if I ask you, How did you feel when you married? You say, It’s not easy to explain.
Is not enough?

Lovely Andrea Petkovic led by a set, 5-4 and 40-0 against Svetlana Kuznetsova.

She lost.

Robin dropped just two games to Taylor Dent and looks to be on awesome form (oh please, let that be true!)

Aravane literally doesn’t know the meaning of backing off, and it’s working for her as she survived a tough challenge from Angelique Kerber.

This guy’s playing. In case you didn’t know.

This girl’s playing. In case you care.

Marin is into the third round after playing a mere seven sets. Weird.

The more I have to listen to male journalists snigger and judge about Venus’ dress, the more I love it. Sod them all, she looks amazing.

Say hello to Julian Reister. Before this tournament, he’d played three ATP matches in his career and lost them all. Now he’s beaten Feliciano Lopez and Olivier Rochus and he’s in the third round of Roland Garros. And stuff like this is why I love Slams.

Really interesting article from The Times on the mixture of giggling and grit that is life on the WTA tour. Go read the whole thing before it disappears behind a paywall.

I am told one story of the girl who found her rackets with all the strings cut out. Another is of the girl who could not handle the heat and took a year off to cool down. Another is of the locker-room bullies: the high-rankers who may decide that they want the locker of a lower-ranked player, so will then take down their name tag and evict them.

And there is plenty of talk of the ice queens who have closed down the concept of conversation completely. When you are playing for millions, why talk to your competitors? “A lot of the girls want to show the pecking order,” is how Elena Baltacha, the Briton, puts it. “Barging you out of the way is a way of showing they don’t respect you. The top 10 to 20, they are constantly hunted. They are constantly on guard and will want to slap you down. If you show respect on court, you’ve lost.” […]

Coffee with Wozniacki and Azarenka. This is interesting because it changes the story. Wozniacki is 19 years old and ranked world No 3; Azarenka is 20 and No 11. They are the up-and-comers of the women’s game; theoretically, they should detest each other. But last year, Wozniacki finished the season by holidaying in Mauritius with another rival, Agnieszka Radwanska (aged 21, ranked No 8); this year she is already talking holiday plans with Azarenka.

It was, they say, Martina Hingis who melted the permafrost of the locker room by actually talking to her rivals, but these girls have taken friendly rivalry to a new level. “We only really compete for guys,” Azarenka says.

“On the court, we don’t really want to kill each other,” Azarenka says, “but we want to win.”

“I think the young girls today are really sticking together,” Wozniacki says. Her point was made the next day when she and Radwanska were knocked out simultaneously and consoled each other by sitting in the locker room eating chocolate together. As Radwanska recorded in her blog: “We also went out for a late dinner, then we watched a scary movie . . . Paranormal Activity . . . There’s one part at the end that’s so scary, we jumped so much, the computer almost fell off the bed.”

I ask about the pecking order, the intimidation and Wozniacki explains: “If you are friendly and open, the other players don’t try to scare you as much.” Who would they be? “We can’t say,” comes the reply. And this is common; yes, tennis can be a catfight; and no, we won’t snitch on the cats with the sharpest claws.

According to this article and the translation supplied on tennisforum.com, Elena Dementieva may be questioned by the WTA after her 75 46 64 loss to Tsetvana Pironkova in Warsaw yesterday. Polish Eurosport alleges she had a plane ticket to Paris booked before her match.

I don’t believe it, if only because I don’t feel like a torturous early loss for Demmy is an unusual enough event to require any kind of special circumstances to explain it. But there’s definitely something up with her, and I won’t be expecting too much from her in Paris. (Of course, that’s traditionally when she comes up with the goods.)

Speaking of Roland Garros and low expectations, Caroline Wozniacki was forced to retire a set down to Li Na in Warsaw today. She’s reportedly optimistic about playing in Paris, and I’d be stunned if she didn’t. Still, it’s a worrying thing to happen the week before a Slam.

The only other thing that could have made this day more of a comedy of unforced errors? A double retirement in the final and most anticipated match of the day between Tomas Berdych and David Nalbandian. Which, of course, happened. Mardy Fish and Michael Russell, anyone? I don’t even care enough to check who won.